| |
| LIFE’S best things crowd around its close | |
| To light it from the door; | |
| When woman’s aid no further goes, | |
| She weeps and loves the more. | |
| |
| Oft, oft, she doubted in his life, | 5 |
| And feared his mission’s loss; | |
| But now she shares the losing strife, | |
| And weeps beside the cross. | |
| |
| The dreaded hour is come at last; | |
| The sword has reached her soul; | 10 |
| The hour of timid hope is past, | |
| Unveiled the awful whole. | |
| |
| There hangs the son her body bore, | |
| Who in her arms did rest; | |
| Those limbs the nails and hammer tore, | 15 |
| Have lain upon her breast. | |
| |
| He speaks. With torturing joy the sounds | |
| Invade her desolate ear; | |
| The mother’s heart, though bleeding, bounds | |
| Her dying son to hear. | 20 |
| |
| “Woman, behold thy son. Behold | |
| Thy mother.” Best relief— | |
| That woful love in hers to fold | |
| Which next to hers was chief! | |
| |
| Another son, but not instead, | 25 |
| He gave, lest grief should kill, | |
| While he was down among the dead, | |
| Doing his Father’s will. | |
| |
| No not instead; the coming grace | |
| Shall make him hers anew— | 30 |
| More hers than when, in her embrace, | |
| His life from hers he drew. | |
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